Revolving door with non-concentric casing.



T. VAN KANNEL.

REVOLVING DOOR WITH NON-UONUENTRIC CASING. APPLICATION FILED MAR. 29,1907. RENEWED JULY 1, 1009.

Patented Jan. 25, 1910.

5 SHEETS-SHEBT 1.

T. VAN KANNBL. RBVOLVING DO0R WITH non-cononn'mw CASING. .APPLIOATIONIILBD MAR. 29, 1907. RENEWED JULY 1, 1909.

5 EHBBTS-SHBIIT 2.

Patented Jan. 25, 1910.

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T. VAN KANNEL. REVOLVING noon WITH NON-CONOENTRIG CASING. APPLICATIONFILED MAR. 29, 1907. RENEWED JULY 1, 1909.

5 SHEETS-SHEET 3.

Patented Jan. 25, 1910.

T. VAN KANNEL. REVOLVING DOOR WITH NON-CONCENTRIC CASING. APPLICATIONF'ILED MAR. 29, 1907. RENEWED JULY 1, 1909.

Patented Jan. 25, 1910. 5 SHEETS-SHEET 4.

UNTTE STATES PATENT OFFICE.

THEOPHILUS VAN KANNEL, OF NEW YORK, N. Y., ASSIGNOR TO VAN KANNELREVOLVING DOOR COMPANY, A CORPORATION OF WEST VIRGINIA.

REVOLVING DOOR WITH NON-CONCENTRIC CASING.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Jan. 25, 1910.

Application filed March 29, 1907, Serial No. 365,285. Renewed July 1,1909. Serial No. 505,493.

T all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, THEOPI-IILUS VAN KANNEL, a citizen of the UnitedStates, residing at 519 lVest One Hundred and Fortyfourth street, NewYork, county of New York, and State of New York, have invented certainnew and useful Improvements in Revolving Doors with Non-ConcentricCasings, fully described and represented in the following specificationand the accompanying drawings, forming a part of the same.

The object of this invention is to provide a construction for arevolving door, so that, with a door of given diameter, the entrance andexit to the casing may be wider than those heretofore attainable withthe circular casings in common use.

Where a circular casing is used for a revolving door, the inlet andoutlet of the easing embrace only ninety degrees of the circle, and thusatl'ord a passageway which has only seven-tenths of the width of thecasing.

In the present invention, a casing having sides non-concentric, or withparallel walls, is used in connection with an expansible rotatable doorhaving wings which are projectable to a greater or less extent from theaxis of the door, and which are guided during the rotary movement of thedoor so that their outer ends follow the non-concentric line of thecasing and maintain a contact therewith to prevent the ingress of windand. dust. The door is made cxpansible by providing a hinge-body uponthe center spindle oi the door and jointing the wings theretotransversely to the radius of the hinge-body, so that the edges of thewings may move outwardly by turning the body in relation to the wings.Such turning of the body causes the wings to swing to positions more orless approaching a radius to the axis of the door, the outer edges ofthe wings being carried out ard the more they approach the radial line,and such expansion of the door enables the edges of the wings to followa casing of non-concentric character. By making the opposite walls ofthe casing of svmmctrical character as is common, all the wings may besuitably actuated so that their edges move simultaneously in similarpaths; the wings not in contact with the walls thus traveling throughpaths similar to those which are in contact. Any means may be used toguide the edges of the wings along the wall of the casing; and inpractice, I

find it desirable to provide each wing with a guide roller fitted intocontact with a cam or with the wall of the casing. lVhere a cam is usedabove the tops of the wings, guide-rollers are carried by vertically movable bolts which may be drawn downward to clear the cam, when it isdesired to collapse the doors to form an open passageway.

The walls Of the door-casing are made of suitable length to maintain acontact at all times with wings at opposite sides of the door, and it isfound that a cam adapted to operate smoothly upon the door-wingsrequires that a slight inward curve be formed at the ends of thecasing-walls. This will be understood by reference to the annexeddrawing, in which ,l igure 1 is an elevation of a door con structed withmy improvement; Fig. 2 is a cross section oil the top of the casing online 22 in Fig. 3, with an elevation of the up per ends of the lateralwings, and the edge of the center wing. Fig. 3 is a plan of the casing,the hinge body, and the revolving wings attached thereto, with the wallsat the sides of the doorway, two of the wings touching the middle partof the casingwalls; Fig. t shows the top of the casing, with the sidewalls of the casing in dotted lines, and showing the guide-rollers as inFig. 3; Fig. 5 is a plan similar to Fig. 3 with two of the wings incontact with the end curved portions of the walls; Fig. (3 shows the topof the casing with the side walls of the casing in dotted lines andshowing the guide-rollers as in Fig. 5. Figs. 7 and 8 are like l igs. 5and (3, but with a continuously curved casing; l ig. 9 is an elevationof the hinge-body and connections broken at the middle for want of room;and Fig. 10 is a plan of the same. Fig. Ill shows the wings connectedwith the hinge-body by springbutts. Fig. 1.2 shows a casing withstraight parallel side walls. Arrows show the direction of rotation.

In Figs. 3 to (3, a designates the sidewalls ot' the casing lormedparallel with one another throughout the greater part of their length,but having inward curves (1 at the ends. I) designates the door-spindleat the center of the casing, with a hinge-body a mounted thereon andprovided with hingeseats (Z corresponding in number with the four wingso. The wings are hinged to the seats by hinges f, shown in several ofthe figures, but lettered only in Fig. 7 and are extended from the seatstransversely to a radial line drawn from the spindle to each seat, thewings assuming different angles to such radial line when at the middleof the side-walls as in Fig. 3, and near the ends of the side-walls asin Fig. 5. In Fig. 3, the hinge-body is shown rectangular, and in Fig. 5the four bars project radially from the spindle with the hinge-seatsupon their outer ends, and it will be noticed that such hingebody isturned very materially in relation to the wings, and the wings openedmaterially upon their hinges; in moving from the middle portion of theside-walls as in Fig. 3, to the ends as in Fig. 5. Spring hinges pressthe wings constantly outward.

A roof-plate f is shown in Fig. 2 fitted to the spindle above the top ofthe wings and furnished with four slots 9 one extended along the line ofeach wing, through which a roller h is extended from the top of the winginto contact with a cam 2', j, is, sustained upon the top of the casing.The cam is shown with a continuous curve extending around the inner sideof a nearly rectangular opening in a cam-plate I, the curve havingconvex portions as z', adjacent to the middle of each side-wall, andconcave portions adjacent to the curved end portions of such walls. Thecorner curves j are connected by transverse portions 7c of the samecurvature as the portions 2'. A bridge 6 is supported upon the cam-plateI and eX- tended across the cam-opening to support the top of thedoor-spindle 6. (Figs. 2 and 6.) The roller h is carried by a bolt Z2movable vertically in a housing Z attached to the face of the door-wingnear the top, and a knob on upon the bolt, which is mov able in a slotin the housing, serves to move the bolt vertically and to lock it in itsupper position, by turning the shank of the knob into the notch in thehousing, as shown at the right hand side of Fig. 2. The bolt is providedbeneath the roller 72, with a roller 72, to fit the slot in theroof-plate 7, both rolls turning independently upon the bolt; but whenthe bolt is lowered both of the rollers are drawn below the roof-plate fand the wings can be turned freely upon their hinges. Two of the wingsmay thus be released at any time and folded each along side one of theintermediate wings, when an open passageway through the casing isdesired. The rollers 71, are, by the construction, always at a uniformdistance from the flaps 6 upon the outer edges of the doorwings, and thecurve of the cam wherever the roller contacts with it, is therefore atan equal distance from the side-wall of the cas ing where the wing is tocontact therewith.

With four wings in the door, the roofplate f has four equidistant slots9 which hold the wings in all positions at ninety degrees from oneanother; but the spindle cannot be connected rigidly with both theroofplate and the hinge-body 0, as such hingebody and roof-plate have anoscillating movement, in relation to one another, four times during eachrotation of the door. This is apparent from the position of the slots inrelation to the seats (Z of the hingebody, as shown in Figs. 4 and 6,the slots showing the position of the roof-plate while the seats showthe position of the hingebody in relation thereto. The roof-plate ispreferably attached to the spindle as by the hub and flange a in Fig. 2,and the hinge-body fitted to turn loosely upon the spindle by means of acentral hub c. The hinge-body and roof-plate may be connected with thespindle in any manner to rotate independently of one another.

The wall 7) of a building containing the doorway 0 is shown in Figs. 3and 5, with the side-walls of the casing fitted to such doorway, and itis obvious that the passageway through the casing is contracted only avery little by the curved portions a at its opposite ends, thusaffording much freer ingress and egress than with a circular casinghaving ninety degrees opening.

Figs. 7 and 8 show a casing with continuous curvature in each of theside walls, and the opening contracted the same as with the parallelwalls having curved ends in F 3, and Fig. 12 shows a casing withstraight parallel side walls, the wings in such latter constructionnecessarily requiring a greater degree of extension than if the ends ofthe side walls were curved. Owing to the connection of the wings to thehinge-body and the engagement of their rollers h with the roof-plate f,the movement of each wing is communicated to all the others and a camoperating upon one wing only would produce identical movements in theother wings, as indicated by dotted lines a in Fig. 3. It is preferable,however, to have four identical cams to operate simultaneously upon thefour rolls so as to diminish the strain imposed upon the rollers andthus increase their smoothness of operation and durability.

Such continuous cams are shown in Figs. 4: and 6, but Fig. 8 shows onlytwo of the cam surfaces with clearance between their opposite ends wherethe rollers pass across the casing from one side to the other cominginto contact with the cam surface by the dotted curve a, in which curvethe roller is moved by the operation of the other rollers already incontact with the cam surfaces. It will be observed that such line makesan obtuse angle with the curve of the cam and thus produces a suddencontact of the roller therewith, which undesirable effect is avoidedwith the short curves formed upon the ends of the straight-sided casingshown in Fig. 3.

tioned to hold the wings in contact with the side Walls until they arenear the ends, and

' then to draw them gradually away from the same so as to maintain aneasy movement of the rollers over the cam surface. The spring-hinges areshown in Figs. 9, l0 and 11V to press the wings constantly outward, forthe purpose of holding the rollers in contact with the cam surfaces; butthe cam may be formed with a groove to lit the opposite sides of therollers it and thus move the doors inward and outward positively withoutthe use of springs. A portion of such cam groove is indicated on theright hand side of the cam in Fig. 4, the inner portion 1) of the :amgroove being secured to the outer portion by bridge-pieces w. The use ofa spring which holds the roller firmly against the cam surface avoids,however, the shocks and jars which arise in moving a roller through acam groove having reverse curves and lost motion.

The square hinge-body 0 is shown hollow in Figs. 9 and 10 fitted to turnon the spindle l by spiders 3 secured on the ends of the body, and whichhave lugs a projected over the corners of the body to receive thehingepintles 5 of the wings. Hinge-ears 6 are shown upon the wings andspiral springs 7 connected with such ears are wound around the pintlesand are secured to the lugs 41 under a tension to throw the wingsconstantly outward.

In Fig. 11, the wings are shown connected with the corners of thehinge-body by spring-butts 8 which may be of any ordinary constructionand adjusted to press the wings constantly outward from the body.

Instead of a roof-plate, the slots may be formed in a foiiir-armedspider 2, as shown in Fig. 12, to hold the wings in their successivepositions by means of the rollers h. in such case, the roof-plate may,if desired, be stationary, and the bearing for the upper end of thespindle fixed in such roof-plate, and a cam dispensed with by pivotingrollers 1 directly in the edges of the wings to contact with the wallsof the casing. The rollers 7* contact with the casing near one end ofthe same and force the wings inwardly until the middle of the casing isreached, when the wings again expand outwardly under the spring pressureuntil they leave the casing. Such rollers shown in Fig. 12 obviouslyhave the same effect upon the wings as rollers operated upon a camsurface, which in any case would move the edge of the wing through acorresponding path.

As stated in connection with the line (1. in Fig. 3, a cam operatingupon one wing only would produce identical movements in the other wings,which is due to the means shown for jointing the wings to the spindleand for guiding the wings by the rollers II, in the slots g of theroofplatc.

Any means may be used for guiding the edges of the wings, (that is theflaps c upon their edges) in contact. with the walls of the casing;provided the wings are made expansible to follow the non-conceiitricsurfaces of the walls.

Where the rollers r bear directly upon the walls of the casing, therollers /L are also required operating in slots to hold the wings intheir proper relation to one another, the slots being made to limit theoutward movement of the rollers, and the corresponding extension of thewings under the outward pressure of the spring hinges.

It will be understood that the rollers are applied to the stud orstud-bolt is merely to diminish the friction, and that the stud uponeach of the wings is fully adapted without the bolt to contact with thecam, and guide the edges of the wings in the desired manner. Thestud-bolt la illustrated in Fig. 2, is made as a movable bolt to permitthe disengagement of the door-wings from the cam so that the wings maybe collapsed when desired; but a non-retracting stud would obviouslyguide the wing as effectively, and l have, therefore, claimed broadly astud upon each of the wings cooperating with a cam upon the top of thecasing. The construction may thus be materially modilied withoutdeparting from the invention, and any suitable means may be used toguide the edges of the wings along the inner walls of the casing, as theessential feature of the invention is the combination withnon-concentric walls, of an expansible door having wings provided withmeans to guide their edges along the nonconccntric surfaces of thewalls.

To ell'ect the expansibility of the door, the wings have a freelymovable hinge-connection with the hinge-body on the spindle during therotation of the door, and differ in this respect. from any wings whichhave been heretoilore jointed to a hinge-body merely for the purpose ofcollapsing to open the door-passage in cn'iergencies, as all suchpreviously hinged wings have been braced to hold them in a radialposition during the normal rotating movements of the door, while thepresent wings are not held in a fixed relation to the hinge-body, buteonstantly change their relation as the door rotates.

Having thus set forth the nature of the invention what 1 claim hereinis:

t. .In a revolving door, the combination. with a door-casing havingopposite walls, of a center spindle having an expansible door mountedthereon with lllOtlllS adapted to guide the ends of the wings along theinner &

sides of the walls, and moving the edges of the wings in and out fromthe center of the spindle during such rotation.

2. In a revolving door, the combination,

with. adoor-casing having opposite walls, of a center spindle, anexpansible door comprising a hinge-body mounted upon said spindle withwings having a freely movable hinge-connection thereto during therotation of the door, and means arranged and operated, when the door isrotated, to guide the ends of the wings along the inner sides of thewalls, thereby swinging the wings into positions more or lessapproaching a radius to the aXis of the door.

3. In a revolving door, the combination, with a door-casing havingopposite walls, of a center spindle, an expansible door comprising ahinge-body mounted upon said spindle with wings having a freely movablehinge-connection thereto during the rotation of the door, a stud at thetop of each of said wings, and a cam attached to the top of the casingto contact with the stud and guide the edges of the wings along theinner sides of the walls.

4:. In a revolving door, the combination, with a door-casing havingopposite walls, of a center spindle, an eXpansible door comprising ahinge-body mounted upon said spindle with wings having a freely movablehinge-connection thereto during the rotation of the door, a roof-platefitted to the spindle and slotted along the side of each wing, a camattached to the top of the casing to guide the door-wings, andstud-bolts movable vertically upon certain of the wings and extendedinto the slots to contact with the cam, and wholly retractable from theslots to permit the collapsing of the wings.

5. In a revolving door, the combination, with a door-casing having sidesparallel for at least the middle portion, of a center spindle, anexpansible door comprising a hingebody mounted upon said spindle withwings having a freely movable hinge-connection thereto during therotation of the door, a roof-plate fitted to the spindle and slottedalong the line of each wing, a bolt-housing upon each wing with astud-bolt movable vertically therein through the slot, a cam supportedupon the casing above the roofplate, and rollers upon the bolt fittedrespec tively to the slot and to the cam when the bolt is elevated,whereby the bolt is guided in the slot and the wings guided by the cam.

6. In a revolving door, the combination, with a door-casing having sidesparallel for at least the middle portion, of a center spindle. anexpansible door comprising a hingebody mounted upon said spindle withwings having a freely movable hinge-connection thereto during therotation of the door, a roof-plate fitted to the spindle and slottedalong the line of each wing, a bolt-housing operating to withdraw bothof the rollers through the slot to permit the collapsing of the wings.

7. In a revolving door, the combination, with a door-casing havingopposite sides, of a center spindle with a hinge-body supported thereonand having hinge-seats corresponding to the number of door-wings, wingshinged upon such seats transversely to a radial line from the spindle toeach seat, and means for guiding the edges of the wings along theparallel sides of the casing, the hinge-body being turned in relation tothe wings during such guiding movement.

8. In a revolving door, the combination, with a door-casing havingopposite parallel sides, of a center spindle with a hinge-body supportedmovably thereon and having hinge-seats corresponding to the number ofdoor-wings, wings hinged upon such seats as set forth, a roof-platesupported upon the spindle and hinge-body and slotted in the line ofeach wing, bolts extended from the wings through the said slots, and acam supported upon the casing above the roof-plate and operating uponthe bolts to guide the edges of the wings along the parallel sides ofthe casing, the roof-plate and hingebody being moved in relation to oneanother during such guiding movement.

9. In a revolving door, the combination, with a casing having its wallsparallel at opposite sides of the center spindle and the walls havinginward curves at the ends as set forth, of a center spindle, aneXpansible door comprising a hinge-body mounted upon said spindle withwings having a freely movable hinge-connection thereto during therotation of the door, a roller upon each of said wings, and a camadapted to guide the ends of the wings along the parallel sides of thecasing and into contact with the curves at their opposite ends.

10. In a revolving door, the combination, with a door-casing havingopposite walls, of a center spindle, an eXpansible door comprising ahinge-body mounted upon said spindle with wings having a freely movablehingeconnection thereto during the rotation of the door, means forpressing the wings normally outward, and means for guiding the edges ofthe wings successively into contact with the walls of the casing.

11. In a revolving door, the combination, with a door-casing havingopposite walls, of a center spindle, an expansible door comprising ahinge-body mounted upon said spindle with wings having a freely movablehingeconnection thereto during the rotation of the door, means forpressing the wings normally outward, and means for guiding the outeredges of the wings in similar paths adapted to contact successively withthe walls of the casing.

12. In a revolving door, the combination, with a door-casing havingopposite walls, of a center spindle, an expansible door comprise ing ahinge-body mounted upon said spindle with wings having a freely movablehingeconnection thereto during the rotation of the door, means forpressing the wings normally outward, means for guiding the outer edgesof the wings into contact with the walls of the casing, and mechanism:tor

moving the edges of all the wings s'unultaneedges of the wmgs to expandnormally 1n ously in similar paths.

13. In a revolving door, the combination, with a central spindle 1having a hollow hinge-body 0, of Spiders 3 secured on the ends of thebody to support it rotatably upon the spindle, and wings hinged upon thebody, the construction making the Outer edges of the Wingssimultaneously expansible in relation to the spindle.

14. In a revolving door, the combination,

with a center spindle 1 having a hollow hinge-body of spiders 3 secured.on the ends of the body to support it rotatably upon the spindle, lugslprojected from the spiders and wings having hinge-ears jointed to suchlugs, the construction making the outer edges of the wingssimultaneously expansible.

In a revolving door, the combination, with a center spindle having ahollow hingebody a, of spiders 3 secured on the ends of the body tosupport it rotatably upon the spindle, lugs 4t projected from thespiders, wings having hinge-ears jointed to such lugs, and spiralsprings applied to the hingeears and lugs to throw the wings normallyoutward, the construction causing the outer the same degree.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand in the presence of twosubscribing witnesses.

THEOPHILUS VAN KANN EL.

lVitnesses:

FRED. FIEN, THOS. JOSEPH CoNNons.

